Broken Promises, Shattered Dreams, Ugly Truths: Monopoly for the Masses

“I think Barack Obama is a one-term President.” —former Vice President Dick Cheney

Well, I think Dick Cheney is an asshole—but he’s probably right. President Obama runs a serious risk of being a one-term President because he’s largely failed to deliver on his campaign promises (the ones he made to the voters in order to get elected), and the window of opportunity for keeping those promises continues to shrink. At this point it makes no difference why Obama reneged on his promises; the end results are the same.

For what ails this country blame Obama, yes, but not before you blame previous administrations going back 30 years. Blame Wall Street’s shadow government, greedy corporations, and their minions, the lobbyists, too. In Congress, blame the Republican obstructionists and spineless Democrats who, for expediency’s sake, shirk their responsibilities to their constituents. Blame wrong-headed Supreme Court decisions; blame an ill-informed electorate that believes Faux News is the purveyor of gospel truth; blame a disinterested public that’s too dimwitted to fully understand the issues or too complacent to get out and vote. While you’re at it, blame the chickenshit defenders of the status quo (which probably includes all of the above); there’s plenty enough blame to go around.

The inconvenient, unbearable, ugly truth of the matter is that the U.S., as it’s existed for more than 230 years, faces imminent danger of becoming something the Founding Fathers never envisioned, something they abhorred. While a dysfunctional government watches dispassionately as the economy sputters and grinds to a halt, the social infrastructure of a once great nation inexorably turns to rubble.

Common citizens suffer for lack of jobs, lack of affordable housing, lack of health care, and lack of competent, trustworthy leadership. Meanwhile, a very small percentage of the total population ransacks the economy and carries off all the goodies—thoroughly shortchanging the middle class and totally disenfranchising all those below the middle class.

If current trends continue, it won’t be long before the people in the upper echelons of the middle class and those in the lower echelons of the privileged class begin to feel the pinch, too. When the richest of the rich have extracted every last dime from members of the lower classes, it’s only a matter of time until they begin feeding on their own.

In every Monopoly game, there can only be one winner.

Q >>>

The Truth is Out There

“The truth is out there.” —Fox Mulder

For Barking Moonbats, courtesy of MoveOn.org:

Top Five Health Care Reform Lies—and How to Fight Back

Lie #1: President Obama wants to euthanize your grandma!!!

The truth: These accusations—of "death panels" and forced euthanasia—are, of course, flatly untrue. As an article from the Associated Press puts it: "No 'death panel' in health care bill."⁴ What's the real deal? Reform legislation includes a provision, supported by the AARP, to offer senior citizens access to a professional medical counselor who will provide them with information on preparing a living will and other issues facing older Americans.⁵

Lie #2: Democrats are going to outlaw private insurance and force you into a government plan!!!

The truth: With reform, choices will increase, not decrease. Obama's reform plans will create a health insurance exchange, a one-stop shopping marketplace for affordable, high-quality insurance options.⁶ Included in the exchange is the public health insurance option—a nationwide plan with a broad network of providers—that will operate alongside private insurance companies, injecting competition into the market to drive quality up and costs down.⁷

If you're happy with your coverage and doctors, you can keep them.⁸ But the new public plan will expand choices to millions of businesses or individuals who choose to opt into it, including many who simply can't afford health care now.

Lie #3: President Obama wants to implement Soviet-style rationing!!!

The truth: Health care reform will expand access to high-quality health insurance, and give individuals, families, and businesses more choices for coverage. Right now, big corporations decide whether to give you coverage, what doctors you get to see, and whether a particular procedure or medicine is covered—that is rationed care. And a big part of reform is to stop that.

Health care reform will do away with some of the most nefarious aspects of this rationing: discrimination for pre-existing conditions, insurers that cancel coverage when you get sick, gender discrimination, and lifetime and yearly limits on coverage.⁹ And outside of that, as noted above, reform will increase insurance options, not force anyone into a rationed situation.

Lie #4: Obama is secretly plotting to cut senior citizens' Medicare benefits!!!

The truth: Health care reform plans will not reduce Medicare benefits.¹⁰ Reform includes savings from Medicare that are unrelated to patient care—in fact, the savings comes from cutting billions of dollars in overpayments to insurance companies and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.¹¹

Lie #5: Obama's health care plan will bankrupt America!!!

The truth: We need health care reform now in order to prevent bankruptcy—to control spiraling costs that affect individuals, families, small businesses, and the American economy.

Right now, we spend more than $2 trillion dollars a year on health care.¹² The average family premium is projected to rise to over $22,000 in the next decade¹³—and each year, nearly a million people face bankruptcy because of medical expenses.¹⁴ Reform, with an affordable, high-quality public option that can spur competition, is necessary to bring down skyrocketing costs. Also, President Obama's reform plans would be fully paid for over 10 years and not add a penny to the deficit.¹⁵

We're closer to real health care reform than we've ever been—and the next few weeks will decide whether it happens. We need to make sure the truth about health care reform is spread far and wide to combat right wing lies.

Sources:

1. "More 'Town Halls Gone Wild': Angry Far Right Protesters Disrupt Events With 'Incomprehensible' Yelling," Think Progress, August 4, 2009.

2. "Fight the smears," Health Care for America NOW, accessed August 10, 2009.

3. "Palin Paints Picture of 'Obama Death Panel' Giving Thumbs Down to Trig," ABC News, August 7, 2009.

4. "No 'death panel' in health care bill," The Associated Press, August 10, 2009.

5. "Stop Distorting the Truth about End of Life Care," The Huffington Post, July 24, 2009.

6. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 11, 2009.

7. "Why We Need a Public Health-Care Plan," The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2009.

8. "Obama: 'If You Like Your Doctor, You Can Keep Your Doctor,'" The Wall Street Journal, 15, 2009.

9. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.

10. "Obama: No reduced Medicare benefits in health care reform," CNN, July 28, 2009.

11. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.

12. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.

13. "Premiums Run Amok," Center for American Progress, July 24, 2009.

14. "Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies," CNN, June 5, 2009.

15. "Reality Check FAQs," WhiteHouse.gov, accessed August 10, 2009.

Sources for the Five Lies:

#1: "A euthanasia mandate," The Washington Times, July 29, 2009.

#2: "It's Not An Option," Investor's Business Daily, July 15, 2009.

#3: "Rationing Health Care," The Washington Times, April 21, 2009.

#4: "60 Plus Ad Is Chock Full Of Misinformation," Media Matters for America, August 8, 2009.

#5: "Obama's 'Public' Health Plan Will Bankrupt the Nation," The National Review, May 13, 2009.

Thanks to Nita Chaudhary and others at MoveOn.org for providing the contents of this post.

Q >>>

Food for Thought

Here’s a little something for President Obama, drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, and other members of the anti-marijuana crowd to “chew” on:

The Truth about Marijuana

Q >>>

Jindal Jabber

When Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal delivered his rebuttal speech to President Obama’s address to Congress on Tuesday night, I was reminded of Sheriff Andy Taylor delivering one of his homespun homilies to a contrite Barney Fife. Except, of course, that Jindal’s speech contained a lot more bullshit and made much less sense than anything Sheriff Andy ever said to his numbskull deputy.

Before Jindal finished telling his disingenuous story about how he and real-life Sheriff Harry Lee defied FEMA bureaucrats to come and arrest them for trying to rescue people from rooftops in flooded New Orleans, another memory began to surface; something about Jindal’s face looked eerily familiar. But, as the Governor’s speech went from lame to lamer and my outrage over his remarks inferring that volcano monitoring is unnecessary spending threatened to make my head do a Mt. St. Helens, I temporarily lost that train of thought.

Hey, if the cost of volcano monitoring displeases Jindal so much, maybe he could apply that same reasoning to other early warning systems; think how much money the government could save if it cut off funding for NASA, USGS, NWS, USFS, and other organizations tasked with gathering information that has the potential to save people’s lives. Applied evenly, Jindal’s logic could turn everyone’s life into a crapshoot (or a crapchute—take your pick). And I’m sure that billionaires would appreciate the resulting tax breaks. But, I digress.

The following day, many of the blogs I follow featured a portrait photo of Bobby Jindal, and the memory I spoke of earlier once again tried to surface. Then—suddenly—a random thought, summed up in a single word, made the memory complete. Freckles! Simply add a sprinkling of freckles to Jindal’s face and you’ve got a near-perfect likeness of Mad Magazine’s poster boy.

In fact, the resemblance is so striking that I now propose that all future displays of Bobby’s portrait photos be accompanied by the caption, “What, me worry?”

And when Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin campaign for the Presidency in 2012, they can do so using the campaign slogan, “What, us worry?”

I’m still undecided if this is something I should worry about.